future now”

The activists also saw the current state of the Syrian
opposition as a challenge to any peace process. They pointed
out that decades of political oppression and marginalization
have left it weak and unstructured, and that it now
lacks the unified political discourse or vision needed to be
a strong actor in any peace work.
According to the activists, none of the warring parties
currently have the political will to pursue peace. At the
same time, Syria has reached the point where neither the
regime, nor the opposition can unilaterally resolve the crisis.
In addition, all outside actors fueling and controlling
the fighting seem to want it to continue.
Lack of societal awareness
There are widespread negative or else passive societal
attitudes towards peacebuilding in Syria. Aside from the
debilitating security situation, activists attribute this
skepticism to a general lack of knowledge about conflict
resolution and peacebuilding because for many decades,
citizens have lived in a culture of political ignorance and
overwhelming state dominance in which they have been
treated as insignificant.
In the face of the horrifying scale of violence in the country,
many people also find concepts like nonviolence and civil
resistance alien. This lack of understanding, and also trust,
can sometimes lead to resistance against the emergence
and increasing relative power of civil society organizations.
Although the situation is starting to change, the women
activists emphasized that gradual and long-term efforts
are needed to spread political knowledge and encourage
all people to participate in state-building.
Societal divisions and groupism
The women activists considered growing societal divisions
and tension as both a current challenge to peacebuilding
and a potential future threat to stability and peaceful
coexistence. Parts of society even seem to have accepted
the war, given its sectarian dimensions, and thus perceive
it as necessary for survival. The activists largely attribute
these antagonistic attitudes to fear, lack of trust and
ignorance.
Furthermore, double standards are applied when approaching
crimes and human rights violations, rejecting accountability
when it comes to perpetrators who belong to their
own social group or political conviction.
Limited resources
There is a lack of financial and human resources to design
and implement peacebuilding activities. As put by one
of the women, “Activists can not just continue to volunteer
their time and money as they are going to eventually
exhaust themselves.” For example, even when economic
empowerment projects succeeded in making a difference,
financial limitations obstruct expanding or sometimes
even simply maintaining them. On top of that, activists
reported it is sometimes difficult to find volunteers who
believe in and want to do peace work.
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Patriarchy & perceived roles of women
In addition to the aforementioned challenges, women in
general and women activists in particular have to overcome
the male dominance in decision-making in Syria.
Traditional perceptions of women and their role in society
tend to undermine women and be dismissive of their
efforts. Most activists talked about facing difficulties
during their peacebuilding activism due to societal resistance
or family pressure and concern. Many activist women
are, for example, criticized of being negligent of their
domestic duties, including full-time childcare.
Many activists argued that men object to women’s involvement
in public affairs for “fear of losing authority over
them” or because of society’s “overwhelming masculine
thinking” or because men “won’t give up their centuriesold
privileges” to women in general and women family
members in particular. As a result, the activists pointed
out that some women activists can feel less confident
regarding themselves and their work, or have to struggle
against society’s stereotypes and gender roles as well as
the violence in the country.
Similarly, women are systematically excluded from the
ranks of both the regime and the opposition. One activist
pointed out that one should question why women seem
to only be fit to assume positions like the Minister of
Culture, which currently is the solitary position held by
a woman in the Syrian official government as well as the
interim government. Women activists, notably many from
Aleppo, also stated that they are not able to hold decisionmaking
positions in their local councils or authorities
because they are women. One of them said that she was
compelled to leave an organization she co-founded when
her male colleagues denied her any senior position, using
religion as a pretext and claiming that, according to Islam,
women should not assume any high executive roles.
Persecution and restrictions
Like all civil society and human right activists, women
activists face security threats, for example, detention,
torture and sexual abuse 1 , and unfair trials imposed by
the regime and/or its opponents. In addition, in regions
controlled by armed extremist groups, women’s activism
has received extra scrutiny. Activists said they had to
separate men and women in workshops, abide by what the
extremists call a “sharia dress code”, and sometimes stay
at home altogether because of women being banned from
leaving their houses. Projects have also become suspended
or banned. For example, a literacy project run by women
activists in Aleppo was suspended despite it having been
successful.
Resources and tools
Civil society and influential individuals
The women activists highlighted that the emergence and
growth of Syrian civil society organizations in the last
years have greatly contributed to spreading knowledge
and awareness of peacebuilding. These groups and initiatives
exist in almost all areas of the country, organizing